Flea-Falling

 If any of you were ever so foolish as to ask what annoys me more than anything, which I doubt you would considering the extraordinarily garrulous posts I have already graced you with, I wonder myself what the response would be. Even if I have to admit, I don't know what annoys me on a day-to-day basis. However, I have a pretty good guess, and that guess is a toss-up between Valentine's Day and fleas.

I have been trying to write a blog post on V-day for a good, solid week now. Yet I can't write a single paragraph without sounding like some embittered old spinster talking to a skeletal cat in the corner. You know what I'm talking about. The kind of woman whose limbs appear as though they'll crackle like icicles and fall off any minute. Seeing as I do not carry an abyss of an alligator purse that smells like it was walking yesterday, I do not wish to give this impression. (However, if you are all very lucky, I might let one of my ulterior personalities take over and update sometime.) Anyway, the point I am finally getting around to is, I can't write about v-day so I'm gonna gripe about fleas.

At some point during this grueling summer now past, my dogs decided they wanted to show me their affection by bringing unholy numbers of fleas into the house. Believe you me, when I realized what those mutts had done, I was very strongly tempted to put them in a box and send them to the Asians down the street as a Betty Crocker Complete Meal.

Thankfully, I love my dogs and was willing to forgive them this sin. Numerous itches and a hundred dollars of medicines later, we had even managed to mostly eradicate the little hopping vampires. However, there are two lessons you should tuck away in the event this ever happens to you. One is that my mother is neither ashamed nor afraid to take a vacuum cleaner attachment to a living creature's fur in order to de-flea it. (At least the husky didn't shed so much this year) The other is one I discovered by myself. Even when you crush a flea in half between your fingernails, the decapitated little bugger from Hades will STILL leap away into the unknown in its never-ending quest to drive you insane. 

I guess the moral of this story is we should all feel a lot sorrier for the people who sit on camels all day.

A Dedication

I look at you through the mirror of my mind, and I realize it needs cleaning. The details are blurring and you're starting to look like everyone else I ever knew. Is this the norm? I can only assume it happens to everyone. Maybe you were the other part of my heart, but when you left my heart changed and it's just an unmatched sock, waiting around for something. Better? Who knows. All I know is it's waiting for something different.

~*~

I live for your phone calls and the weekends when we get to pretend you're not going away. I love the quiet dignity you match with my boundlessly passionate existence. And I guess it's a darn good thing one of us has an ounce of sense, or we'd probably be sitting on some beach somewhere, too poor to buy Cherry Cokes but refusing to come home. (Wait- why is this bad again!? ... See, look what would happen to me without you.) I am truly thrilled to say that you're my bestie, and I wish you'd hurry up and finish your homework because I want to hear about your new kitten. :)

~*~

You've been my soul-sis for so long, and now you're someone's soul-mate. I can't tell you how happy we all are to see the ring finally sparkling on your hand. (I believe he heard me screaming ecstatically when you called to tell me, no?) You've been the best example of a true prayer warrior and friend I've ever seen, and as I kid I aimed to be like you. (Do you even know how happy I was that first time you told me we were just alike?) I can't wait to see you in your dress, or for that (hopefully not too-far-off) day when you call me to tell me I'm gonna be an aunt for the eighth time in my life. Thank you for being so wonderful- I hope all the blessings come right back to you.

Labels. Not for people, or anything else apparently.

Okay, so I had told you that I was going to conclude my multi-part series of things that are out to get me. This, evidentally, was a lie. Please forgive the dishonesty, but it has come to my attention there are still many, many more things in this world that tick me off. (Saran wrap still rates right up there as number one. I mean, seriously, I don't see how anyone has ever gotten it off the roll far enough to smother someone with it. [I guess Saran wrap should come with a child safety warning]) Which brings me to my next point:

Stupid labels.

I mean, for real. How come on the bottom of the Orange Juice carton, does it say "do not turn upside down"? I mean, every single time I read that, I'm just like, "What kind of sick, twisted person thought to do this?" And on the front of frozen dinners, it reads: "Serving suggestion: Heat before consuming" or something similar. No. I *like* frozen enchiladas that break your teeth when you bite them. I will *not* listen to your little "suggestion".

Also: Sears hairdryer: "Do not use near water." Hmm, my hair is wet. I can't use near water. I think I shall dry my already dried hair with it. *blink* On a superman costume for children: "Does not enable you to fly." And last but not least, on a 96 pack of Crayola crayons, I opened the top of the box, to read an audaciously persistent font informing me from the flaps hidden beneath the aforementioned top, "do not open this side." Seriously. Who even cares what side I open my box of crayons on? Will I somehow have less than satisfactory performance from my crayons if I open it on the side I choose to open it? Will the colors fade? Will black be white and green be orange? WHY BOTHER BEING SO STUPID WHEN THERE IS NO NEED TO BE?

...

you'll have to forgive me. I've gotten succesively less sleep each night that passes and I think it's catching up to me. Thank goodness my pillow doesn't say "do not use on mattress" or something. I'd never sleep again.

P.S. what is with the "not to be removed under penalty of law except by consumer" tags on mattresses? Since when am I consuming my mattress?

Never Again

Biggest regret in life? How can someone even ask me that? If I were to sit down and start listing regrets, the interesting pattern is they all start with "you". (Which I find ironic because you loved your lists so much)

What were you anyway?

You were a part of me that I never knew existed. Inside your eyes and beneath your skin there lay a thousand layers of me that never surfaced until we met. Flaws, perfections, loves, hates, pains, burdens and all the things that make us real: I loved them all. You weren't an angel who was always right, but you were me and I was you and we were us.  It's not supposed to make sense, and if doesn't, I don't care. All I knew was I was grateful because you picked me up so I could fly.

Where would we  be now, had Shakespeare not penned our tale? If the tragic shadow that overcast our lives had been fanned away like the smell of an unpleasant smoke?

The truth is, I don't know. I can't even imagine it anymore. And of all the things I've learned in life, the absolute craziest was that it can go on without you. I didn't like it. I didn't want it. But life still went on, as it often seems to do.

When you left, of course you took the part of me you gave. You took the me-ness that was you, and left the remaining bits of me bleeding on the floor. I wept and shuddered and tried to hide, but Grace has a funny way of findings us.

Gentle hands were led to me to help me patch the wounds. The sweetest girl I've ever known became better than the best friend I had already considered her. If you ever taught me anything, it was to truly be grateful for the light on her face and love in her heart. I thought that I appreciated her, but now I know that I can trust her, and that's more than I can say for you.

I couldn't fix the wound you left because I can't see my own back. But I can't see the scar either. You might have taken part of me when you left, but the blood clotted, the scar tissue softened and I went on. Differently, but still went on. What's left now is  a changed me... a thankful, older me.

The regrets were all a part of you, but you're not a part of me anymore. 

In Love and War

Sometimes I wonder if the reason we’re alive
And crawling, though we should be dead
Is because deep inside we never quit fighting
And we never gave in to what’s left

Though the battle was waging and the lines were dividing
You were pulled left and I was pulled right
My skin kept tearing, the scars bursting forth
In spatter of blood color-coating the night

But we wouldn’t let go even when we lay broken
Our hands smashed but still in a clasp
The broken fingers gripping each other
Like the last silhoutte clings to the fading moon’s grasp

And they took you away to your deathbed
Where they waited but they waited in vain
I cried out in anguish when they buried me alive
For I was not dead; only in pain

They made you a prisoner of war
And corrupted you with brainwashing lies
Told you that we were not fighting together
But instead we were on different sides

They threw off your focus and made you believe
That the love I was fighting for was only a lie
The bullets kept piercing, my soul kept on screaming
And the antagonist said, “why won’t she die?”

Because I am a lover but also a fighter
To be a lover is always to fight
And I may not like the post-traumatic symptoms I carry
But I know in the end it is right

I could have evaded the war that I suffered
But for me it was never a choice
Because the day that no one will stand up to fight
Is the day that belief loses its voice

And I? I believe in love, believe in us
And all the things that people claim I shouldn’t say
Because they’re too deep and so vastly meaningful
The world will think them cliche

But I will declare it to the end of the world
And will never give up the fight
And I know that the reason we’re still alive
Is because someone has to stand for what’s right

At The End of All Things

Today I will conclude my.... seven?... part series of things that are out to get me. Just think of it as the Harry Potter Series, only a heck of a lot shorter and without Fred and George. (I could go on to complain about certain unfortunate circumstances that occur in the final novel of said series, but I won't) The final item on my ever-growing lists of forces, institutions and objects out to get me is simply called a cell phone.

At the young, impressionable age of 14, I was given my first cell phone. It was small, black and had rather catchy ring tones. I loved that phone. And boy if I wasn't so darn proud of it. It was mere months later when the first in a trilogy of unfortunate events occurred...

One day I was working on a rather annoying math problem at the kitchen table, somewhat preoccupied with wondering where my phone was. X's and polynomials seemed completely insignificant compared to the mystery of the missing phone. On top of that all, I had a pounding headache which was not helped at all by the thumping of the washing machine, which was busy cleaning our clothes in a room right off of the kitchen. I scribbled down an answer (I imagine it was wrong) and carried on with my current frustration.

Approximately ten minutes after I had rubbed my sore temples for the third time, I heard my mom shuffle into the laundry room. She opened the lid, made a terribly inconvenienced sigh and shouted so loudly it's a wonder the neighbors didn't hear: "OH CRAP." It was in this moment that I laid my head down on the table, the cogs meshing in my mind. I knew what the answer would be as soon as I opened my lips, but had to moan out the question anyway... "What?" "YOUR PHONE WENT THROUGH THE WASHING MACHINE." 

Long story short, after much lecturing ("Why didn't you TELL ME it was missing?!" she exclaimed. "You'd be mad at me!" I replied ironically.) I was taken to Wal-Mart where she purchased a new, ugly, cheap phone for my personal use. After a while, we were eligible for a free upgrade so I got a phone that was the same model as my first.

I suppose from here I could draw out the tale of how a few years later I killed 2 phones in 2 days... the second of which flew out of my pocket on a rollercoaster, when I had been under the false impression I had left it off of the ride. My mom, (now having recovered from the shock of realizing she produced a daughter who kills expensive electronics) jokes that my phones committed suicide, especially the last one. Said the roller coaster was too much for it to handle. Yeah Mom, ha ha. 

I'm not really sure how to conclude this series, other than perhaps by saying I suppose I'm just another victim of Murphy and his laws. Thank you for following this cynical (yet hopefully amusing) blog. *bows*

Another Day, Another Dollar

The cruel institution I am talking about today is not really one that afflicts solely myself, but rather haunts mankind as a whole. In this 100% Geneva-approved, yet still agonizing chamber, the fires of waste are always burning with a green-hued sort of legality. Dollars incinerate into ash and smoke. Another paycheck is used to refill the Kleenex box. And all our hard-earned dimes fill the rattles of young hooligans destined to become lawyers and politicians.

It may sound like I am describing the average American's private idea of the underworld, but for our uses here it has been conveniently abbreviated the IRS... in other words, the "Infernal" Revenue Service.

I can't even pretend I know the full extent of the horrors our money is consumed by. I'm sure I could look it up somewhere, but that would probably cause me severe fits of indigestion and disrupt my overall psychophysiological homeostasis. (I'll be darned if I don't get taxed for those last two words there) I have heard it goes to our roads, pays government employees and funds our school systems. But that is all heresay.

At 14 I began life as another workaholic American, who enjoyed feeling useful and not running to her parents for all her financial needs. However, I was quickly running to my father all the same, demanding to know WHY this 67 cents was deducted from my first paycheck and WHERE was it going and can they TAKE YOUR MONEY before you're 18?! It's called Federal Taxes, to the government, and yes, they'll tax anyone, he told me. (Of course I thought this was all complete rubbish)
However, at the beginning of the next year, I was sent my first refund check. I must have sat around for days trying to decide how to best spite the government with it.

Finally, I couldn't come up with any business that wouldn't be paying taxes from my money right back to the government, and I think I spent it on make-up...
In the end, the moral of this story is: it's not always bad having a minimum wage job. At least you're donating less tissues for the IRS agents to wipe their noses on.